So today was Vigo. We decided not to do an excursion at La Coruña, and we carried this over to the changed port of Vigo. They did arrange a couple of extra ones – Cies Island, and Bayona La Real. But we decided not to do either of these, mainly because I was worried about the weather in light of the Captain’s announcement regarding high winds, etc. In the event it’s been hot, (26 or 27 degrees) sunny, and calm so perhaps we should have done one.

We went ashore at about 10 o’clock and walked around the port for a while. Then we made our way up to the castle at the top of the town, and got very hot doing so (it did seem quite humid today). Then after a rest in the shade we walked back down, found a restaurant and had some lunch. Then we looked for and found a small craft shop that we visited five years ago that sells Galician-made craft products and bought a couple of pieces of pottery. We like to bring back something that will remind us of the holiday and which is beautiful in its own right.

While we were in the restaurant we spotted a huge dixie or boiler. There was steam rising from it but we couldn’t see what was in it it. There was an implement of some sort hanging from the rim, however. Then one of the waiters went to it and all was revealed. It was Boiled Octopus – all suckers and tentacles. The waiter put on some disposable gloves and fished out the octopus with the big implement. Then, laying it on a stainless-steel plate, he used a pair of scissors to cut off a couple of the tentacles! He then proceeded to cut the tentacle into small segments which were placed on a wooden platter. When the platter was covered he spread considerable quantities of first rock salt, then what looked like cayenne pepper onto the sliced segments, and finally poured lashings of olive oil onto the whole ensemble. He finished by sticking a number of small wooden sticks (tooth-picks?) into the segments and there you have it – octopus on a stick.

After he’d finished removing tentacles from the octopus he chucked it back into the boiler ready for the next happy customer.